While the quick-service and casual-dining sectors battled it out with value deals through 2024, the fast-casual sector served as a shelter in the storm for most brands.
Fast-casual chain sales among the Top 500 grew 9% last year, far exceeding the 2.3% growth of quick-service and 1.3% growth in casual dining. Segment leader Chipotle climbed to No. 7 among the top 10 restaurant brands, and Panda Express appears poised to push into the top 10 at No. 11.
The segment included some of the biggest growers of restaurants: Chipotle, Wingstop and Jersey Mike’s Subs added more than 200 units last year, for example, helping to offset the closures of struggling chains, according to the Technomic Top 500 Restaurant Chains report.
It was a good year to be a fast-casual chicken chain. But it was a terrible year to be in fast-casual pizza or a legacy bakery-café brand.
Two hot chicken brands led the segment, in terms of systemwide sales growth. Dave’s Hot Chicken has been on a tear as one of the fastest growing chains and continued its double-digit sales growth, with a more than 57% increase to $616.6 million, increasing its unit count by 43% to 245.
That growth reportedly caught the attention of Roark Capital, which is rumored to be in talks to acquire the Los Angeles-based company in a deal valued at about $1 billion. As part of the Roark portfolio, Dave’s would become a relatively small fish in a big pond. Roark owns the sandwich chain Subway, as well as GoTo Foods (Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon and more), Inspire Brands (Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby’s, Dunkin’ and more), along with CKE Restaurants (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.), Culver’s, Miller’s Ale House and Nothing Bundt Cakes.
And sharing a bit of the spicy heat on the Top 500 is also the much smaller Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken & Wings, a McLean, Virginia-based hot chicken chain with a similar choose-your-spice-level menu of tenders and chicken sandwiches. Hangry Joe’s graduated from the Future 50 list.
Hangry Joe’s grew sales nearly 88% last year to $97.5 million. That growth was likely largely the result of a more than-90% increase in unit count to 97 at the end of the year.
Not far behind are less-spicy chicken specialists Wingstop and Raising Cane’s, both of which grew sales by more than 30% in 2024, propelling both brands into the Top 25, according to the report.
And though Wingstop, as a public company, spent 2024 dazzling the industry with double-digit same-store sales increases based largely on traffic, Raising Cane’s continued to grow its average unit volume to nearly $7 million—more than three times Wingstop’s AUV of $2.14 million. Raising Cane’s, of course, insists on calling its tenders “chicken fingers.”
Wingstop, however, achieved that growth largely with an all-franchised system that relied on paper chits. The Dallas-based brand is now rolling out a new digital Smart Kitchen system that CEO Michael Skipworth describes as a game changer. It’s expected to be in all units by the end of the year.
But when Wingstop wasn’t the talk of the fast-casual town, it was Cava.
The Washington, D.C.-based Mediterranean brand grew sales more than 33% to $954 million, with a 19% increase in unit count to 367 at the end of the year.
Unlike most chains in the fast-casual segment, Cava has kept menu price increases to a minimum and consumers see the brand as a “port in the inflationary storm,” as CEO Brett Schulman likes to say.
But Cava, of course, does not franchise. Perhaps riding on the swell of interest in Mediterranean cuisine is the 64-unit Great Greek Mediterranean Grill, a franchise brand that also graduated to the Top 500, with sales growth of more than 44% last year.
It should be noted that former Panera Bread CEO Ron Shaich chairs Cava’s board and has been a key factor in the chain’s growth as a category-defining brand. Shaich, who sold Panera Bread to JAB Holding Co. in 2017, is also creating change in the bakery-café niche.
;Tatte Bakery & Café, which is owned by Shaich’s Act III Holdings, is quietly creeping up the bottom rungs of the Top 500 list, with sales growth of more than 31% last year to $67.7 million, and a nearly 30% increase in units to 44.
Like Panera, Tatte offers a full menu alongside pastries and bread. But Tatte is more elevated, with scratch kitchen cooking and an Israeli-inspired menu that includes dishes like shakshuka, braised short rib and eggplant couscous, or roasted salmon on jasmine rice with asparagus and fava beans, as well as cakes and pastries.
Meanwhile, after a few years of turbulence, Panera saw sales sink more than 5% last year as the chain struggled to find its footing. Panera overhauled its menu and there have been multiple board shifts. This year brought a new CEO with Paul Carbone taking the helm and plotting a turnaround with a (mostly) all-new board.
Other legacy bakery café chains also suffered in 2024. Corner Bakery, Great Harvest Bakery Café and Kneaders Bakery & Café all saw sales decline and unit counts shrink.
Another legacy brand hoping for turnaround is Noodles & Company, which saw sales decline 2.4% last year. CEO Drew Madsen launched a menu overhaul that appears to be gaining traction, with a focus on jazzed up mac and cheese—alongside the planned closure of 13 to 17 underperforming company restaurants and another four franchised units.
But no category within fast casual suffered as much as a group as fast-casual pizza.
Washington, D.C.-based &Pizza’s sales declined 15% and the company closed 13 restaurants, even as it announced a push into franchising this year.
Similarly, MOD Pizza’s sales were down more than 13% in 2024 and the chain is also leaning into franchising under new owner Elite Restaurant Group. About 44 restaurants closed prior to the deal last year after MOD reportedly flirted with bankruptcy.
Pieology Pizza was down more than 10% in 2024. And even Blaze Pizza, once owned by many of the same investors that successfully grew Dave’s Hot Chicken, saw sales decline 2.6% last year, though Blaze launched a rebranding and menu upgrade.
&Pizza CEO Mike Burns earlier this year said “fast-casual pizza in its current state is dead. It was 70% dine-in before COVID, now it’s 70% carryout.”
It remains to be seen whether the niche can survive the post-COVID-19 shift to off-premise sales.
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